


that song that sent me a-swimming is now the life jacket that burst

by hypotheticalfanfic



Series: various storms + saints [2]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gardening, Gen, I mean Cad lives in a graveyard whaddya want, mentions of death but not graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:27:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29494299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypotheticalfanfic/pseuds/hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: Once, Fjord reflected, he would have wondered how Cad knew. No longer. The things Cad knew were infinite in number and in variation, and if the trade-off was that he had only halfway a grasp on how coins worked, well. Worse ways to go about in the world.
Relationships: Fjord/Jester Lavorre
Series: various storms + saints [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2144124
Kudos: 31





	that song that sent me a-swimming is now the life jacket that burst

“Power,” it had promised, its voice a rumble more felt than heard, that first time - he had forgotten, had been busy drowning at the time. Had it touched him? Its tentacles or claws or both, had they grasped his sinking form and held him there? He’d forgotten. But he remembered it now. “Consume,” it had made his heart and lungs vibrate, “Promise. Potential.” He had been dying, maybe just died, and the words had shaken him back to pain, to life. It had wrapped around him so tight, as if trying to squeeze the sea from his lungs, and its voice had shaken him so badly his bones had creaked, threatened to crack. In the dream, and at the time, the pain had been unbearable, unending, not a sharp stab but a wrenching ache, and all other thought was driven out.

Loud, so loud, “Power,” and he rocketed awake, gasping.

“Fjord?” A deep voice to one side. Caduceus. The dark, shimmering Grove spread before them. The ashes from a ritual. The smell of a dying fire. He was here, he was safe enough, he was the Wildmother’s, and Caduceus was here, too. “Bad dream?”

“Yes,” his own voice rumbled deeper than normal for just a moment. “Ahem. Yes. Sorry to wake you.” He breathed, one deep breath: lungs worked. Bones unbroken. Body whole enough, and here. The morning air smelled sweet and rank, like honeysuckle and valerian. He stood, started doing the stretches Beau insisted on. A long, quiet minute passed, Cad blinking into the rising sun, Fjord trying to think of nothing at all.

_Fjord! Hey, it’s me, Jester, and I’m here with Mama, in Nicodranas, and Orly's here, too, and the whole crew! We're having dinner and it—_

He grinned, waited.

_Man, it cut me off! Anyway I wanted to say I hope you're having a lot of fun in Caduceus's graveyard, and I can’t wait—_

He held back a laugh, just barely.

_Oh my gosh, the stupid thing. Anyway, you know, hi, miss you, say hi to Caduceus for me, Mama says hi, Marius still sucks, bye!_

He responded, _Hello, Jester. Just woke up. Say hello to the crew for me. See you in a few weeks. Miss you, too._

“How is she?” Caduceus asked, stirred the ashes. “Jester, I mean.”

Once, Fjord reflected, he would have wondered how Cad knew. No longer. The things Cad knew were infinite in number and in variation, and if the trade-off was that he had only halfway a grasp on how coins worked, well. Worse ways to go about in the world. “She’s good, out on the coast with her mother. Orly’s in town, she said.” Finished a stretch. He glanced up at the sky: clear, pale. No warnings for him today, it seemed.

Cad lit up. “That’s nice.” Breathed the fire back to life. “Always good to wake up to a good message.” The fire snapped, rustled, settled; just enough for a pot of water, just enough for the morning.

“I think I’ll go wash up.” Fjord brushed grave dirt from his trousers, from his hands. “Do you need anything?”

“Those little white mushrooms from the cellar, the green ones, and some of the Hazkinans, I think. I’ll have the water hot by the time you get back.”

“Want me to grab your staff?” At Cad’s nod, Fjord smiled, began to walk away. Three steps - turned back. “The Hazkinans. Are they in the green bags?”

Caduceus paused, looked thoughtfully into the sky. “They have a bit of a gunpowder smell to them, and one jasmine note.”

Fjord grinned at the ground. “I’ll do my best.”

“If you end up with the Maratis instead, that’s fine, they’ll do.”

* * *

The other Clays were out and about, doing whatever tasks the dead asked of them, and Fjord relished the cool and quiet of the temple. It smelled faintly, as it always did, of damp and darkness, the sweet-and-sulfur scent of rotting plants and rich loam. The Wildmother felt present here, just in a different way than she did when he was on the sea, when the salt and biting wind spoke to him just as this place spoke to Caduceus.

He missed, he realized, _the_ _Ball Eater_. Oh, _Nein Heroez_ was objectively a finer ship, grander and bigger and better armed, but _the_ _Ball Eater_ had been the first ship to be his. Stolen with the group, run with the group, but his in a deeper way. His. He’d been the captain, been the only one with any clue what to do, been — looked to, he supposed. Like Vandren had, though with less, he hoped, violence and seething jealousy. More black powder, less blood on the decks. Other than his own, of course, but Vandren had bled on their decks often enough. Maybe it was a rite of passage.

Perhaps, after this, he’d sail again. Orly would take him back, he knew. The others could do as they liked, and he could be what he’d always wanted: a captain of a ship, a leader of a crew. Simple. Stable. Happy. As he glanced through boxes of bags of tea, trying to remember what jasmine smelled like, he felt a sea breeze on his neck for half a heartbeat, and smiled. There—the green bags, the gunpowder scent and jasmine note. Cad would be pleased. The firbolg’s staff leaned against the barrel of mushrooms; Fjord struggled for a moment to balance: staff tucked under one arm, sack of tea held by his teeth, mushrooms in two hands. Lucky the doors here were all push, not knobbed.

* * *

“At the orphanage,” Fjord started, then stopped. He hadn’t meant to say anything, but Cad’s clear eyes peered over a mug’s rim and he couldn’t keep the words back. “When I was young, there was another half-orc, just for a few months. She was quite a bit bigger than me, older, I think, and,” he stopped again. He hadn’t consciously thought of this in some time. “The other kids were, ah, indelicate. In their teasing. She and I loathed each other, and when she left, I felt such relief.” He looked down at his own tea, at the mushrooms Cad had seared in spices and crisped. “That half-orc we met in the Dynasty.”

“Wursh. The Tapper.”

He smiled. “You remember everyone’s name.” Cad quirked a half smile, popped a mushroom in his mouth. “Yes. Wursh. I hated him so much, right off the bat, and he didn’t deserve that. A little condescending, sure, but—“

Cad motioned to himself, dry wit playing on his face.

“Right, it’s not as ifI’m unused to condescension. Veth alone is ten times meaner than him. And she’s mostly joking about it, these days, I think.” A long pause. “I think—I think it’s a bad practice of mine. Something I’ve always done, or at least done for long enough it’s a habit now. To compare myself to other half-orcs, other large folk in general. Or maybe strong, not just large. Yasha and Beau, I felt intimidated. I wanted them to look to me, like me. Follow me, maybe. And Caleb’s strong, too, in his own way, and I wanted him to, I don’t know. Teach me? You, you have this peace about you, and I wanted that, too. And Jester.” He stopped. Took another sip, waited to see if the words would come. “Anyway. I don’t know why I felt the need to say that, other than,” he laughed a little, “well, I suppose, I’m trying not to do that anymore. Ah, there are a few things I’m trying not to do anymore these days, and that’s one of them.”

Cad nodded. “Sounds about right. You walk differently than you did before. Less scared of yourself. Still trying to,” he looked at the sun, mostly risen now. “To protect yourself, preemptively, I suppose. But less so, and less obviously.”

“Progress.” Fjord drained his cup, laid back on the dirt again. “I think I might sail again, once we’re all back together. Would you want to come?”

He heard Cad’s barking laugh. “Nah. The Wood’s not even close to healed yet. Got too much to do around here, too far behind on graves. But I’m sure some of the others will. If you can pry them away from whatever they’re doing.”

“Sure. Well.” Fjord closed his eyes. For a heartbeat, maybe two, the dirt beneath him was a hammock. It swayed with the ship, and the cries of gulls, the crash of the wake, the creak of the wood: he could hear it all. Could smell lamp oil and gunpowder, could smell people and hard work, could smell salt and tar and dry rot. He had been, for so long, homeless, an orphan. A cast-off stone no one wanted, no one followed. But he was at home in the Grove, in Nicodranas, in the Xhorhaus, aboard his ship. He had family, not just the Nein, scattered across Wildemount and beyond. Power, sure, but promise, too. Power had only ever been a door, a trail to what he wanted, really. The Wildmother caressed his face with salt spray, with sunshine, with a biting wind. He opened his eyes. “It looks to be a pretty day today. What shall we do with it?”

**Author's Note:**

> title from "Swimming" by Florence + the Machine


End file.
